Russian teenage skinhead gang jailed for 19 racist murders

A group of seven teenage skinheads who carried out 19 racially-motivated murders in Moscow have been sentenced to jail terms of between six and 20 years.

5:30PM GMT 15 Dec 2008

The gang targeted non-Slavic migrants in Russia's capital between Aug 2006 and Oct 2007 and then posted evidence of the brutal murders online.

In addition to killing 19 people, the gang also tried to kill a dozen more, the court heard.

Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, seen as the ringleaders of the group, were given 10-year sentences in a penal colony, the maximum the judge could give as they were minors at the time of the crimes.

The 20-year term was handed to Roman Kuzin, who is 20. Four other members of the group received jail sentences of six to 12 years. Two others had previously been acquitted.

The young men, standing in a glass-walled box and dressed in casual jeans and sweaters, remained impassive as the verdicts were read out. Ryno stared blankly in front while Skachevsky hid his face beneath a baseball hat.

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The accused were charged with singling out people of "non-Slavic" appearance and then recording their attacks on video camera before downloading footage onto the internet.

"They killed citizens of Russia, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and China," said Marina Semenenko, the prosecutor. They had been found guilty of 19 murders and 12 attempted murders, although earlier Russian news agencies had said 20 murders were carried out.

Prosecutors said the young men used knives, baseball bats and metal bars. They communicated through nationalist sites and agreed to act "against people with non-Slavic appearance".

Skachevsky has said he was a "Russian soldier" who was cleansing the city of "occupants."

After his arrest in 2007, Ryno said he "hated from school people from the Caucasus and Asians who oppressed Russians."

Rights groups in Russia say that racist crimes have increased fivefold over the last five years.

Earlier this month, the decapitated head of a migrant from Tajikistan was found wrapped in a polythene bag in a rubbish bin outside a local administration building in central Moscow.

A nationalist group claimed the murder, saying it was a warning to the authorities over the growing number of migrants in the Russian capital.

According to the Moscow Human Rights Bureau, 113 people were killed and 340 wounded in a total of 254 racist attacks in Russia from Jan to Oct 2008.